Yes, you read that title right, I'm overweight and ecstatic. You see the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale that we all know of and loathe. The one we call "Crude," and avoid like a brisk :30 minute daily walk, is in fact a very crude measurement tool. That is okay. I don't take it as gospel, but I do accept that by being a crude tool I can look at it and assume what it tells me might be five or ten percent off. By crude, it doesn't mean that I should presume it is probably wrong, it means it may not be precise. So, read it, think about it, consider its weakness, but don't dismiss it as wrong.
That disclaimer said, I plugged 58 inches and 196.8 lbs into my handy BMI calculator this morning and lo and behold I am now a member of "Team Yellow," my body mass index is below 30. Sometime in the dying embers of the last millennium, as I was drearily plotting my newly degree'd, post-Cal Poly existence, at some undetermined black day, presumably over a bowl of ice cream a nearby bag of chips and a beer sidecar I surpassed the line into being clinically obese. There I've remained for over a decade. Obese.
Today, with precision, accuracy, clarity, and a detailed record, on this, the thirteenth day of October, just as Chilean miners arise from their hellish depths, I too, emerge out of the black muck of obesity. Boy, does it feel good.
I've called out my desire to be on "Team Green," what the BMI chart calls "normal." And as always I am aware that it is a crude measurement. My feelings are if BMI is off by 7.2459% and I am 40% above whatever my mythical ideal weight is, I've more important things to concern myself with than the precision of the BMI charts.
Did I mention I was pleased? I am.